Red Zone (Red Zone 1)

“I think you are trying to correct your mistake.” His black eyes were icy cold. “You should have ensured the building was empty for the meeting.”

“I did.” The scientist had sneaked in to work. Something she did all the time, apparently. Something her supervisors had failed to mention.

“We need to contact our source.” Serge Abramovich nursed his ever-present whiskey as he lazed on the cream leather sectional in the corner of her office. His sarcastic smile was as much a fixture as the scotch. “The source will tell us if the woman is still alive.”

“Yes,” Miriam snapped the words. “Why didn’t I think of that?”

The owner of Abramovich Metals and Alloys laughed into his drink.

Miriam waved her hand over her glass-topped desk, used her implant to communicate remotely with the virtual screen that appeared in front of her, and sent a message to their source. A second later, a shadowy figure manifested as a ghostly silhouette hovering above her desk. She didn’t know the identity of her contact, only that he called himself “the Broker” and made a living trading information to the highest bidder.

“We have a problem,” Miriam told the person who was costing them a small fortune. “Enforcement lost them. Are they still alive?”

“I’m adding this to your bill,” the modified voice said.

“Of course.” She folded her arms over her cream silken dress and resisted the urge to tap her toe. The image in front of her froze. The source was contacting someone else. A few seconds passed before it moved again.

“They’re alive. They’re holed up in South Munroe.”

Before she could say anything else, the image disappeared. She mentally contacted the head of the Enforcement team. The holographic man appeared in the middle of the room. This time Miriam noticed he was injured. Blood trailed from his temple.

Not her concern.

“They’re in South Munroe.”

His jaw clenched. “We’ll deal with it.”

“See that you do.” She

cut the connection, and the man disappeared.

“Is this really necessary?” Sandrine Cherbourg asked. The lithe woman headed up the Southern Territory’s largest conglomerate. “Perhaps we should invite the woman in for a download. You do download your Passive Recorders periodically, non? Such a request wouldn’t arouse suspicion.”

“It’s too late for that, my dear,” Ju-Long told her. “Now the world is watching a manhunt unfold live on their newsfeeds.” He gestured to the soundless images running on the wall behind him. They showed live footage of Enforcement officers speeding through Munroe. Someone had gotten hold of the details concerning the chase, and they were running it as a hot news story. To make things even more difficult for them, a photo of Friday Jones appeared in the corner of the screen. “The girl isn’t going to come in willingly now.”

Sandrine shrugged. “Then cut the satellite feeds.”

“Yeah, like that won’t attract further attention,” Serge drawled.

“You should have called her in for a routine download,” Sandrine said.

Miriam didn’t appreciate the reprimand, especially coming from someone she considered to be an interloper within the leadership ranks. “A routine download was the first thing we tried. As soon as it was reported she’d been in the same building at the same time we were, I sent a message requesting her presence for an upgrade.” She eyed each of the most powerful people in the world in turn. “She ran.”

Sandrine stared at the image of Friday Jones, which was frozen on the screen. “Why did she run? Did you order something out of the ordinary?”

“No.” Miriam had personally supervised the request. “I even added the incentive of a promotion.”

Ju-Long stood, clasped his hands behind his back, and paced the room. He was the oldest of the four. Miriam didn’t know his exact age but estimated it to be somewhere in his eighties. The only signs of his advanced age were his white head of hair and a slight stoop to his shoulders. Other than that, his long, stick-insect proportions had changed little over the years. Neither had his merciless nature. “Are we sure she even saw anything? This could all be for nothing if the woman didn’t see anything incriminating.”

Miriam waved a hand, and a recording played on the screen taking up one wall of her office. It showed a bumbling woman hurrying along a corridor. Her attention was firmly on the data pad in her hand, her lips moved as she read the information on it. As she turned the corner, she stumbled, and instead of looking left, she looked right—straight through the open door at the end of the corridor. Straight at the six people who were meeting covertly.

She didn’t pause when she saw them, didn’t stop at all. She had barely more than a glimpse, but it was enough time for the image to be stored in her databank and for her to have recorded any conversation she’d overheard. The woman carried on, still reading her handheld. The meeting hadn’t consciously registered with her. She was completely unaware of the time bomb that was now residing in her head.

“She saw all of us,” Ju-Long said.

“Yes. I didn’t get this visual record until our meeting had concluded. As soon as I saw it, I ordered a download session at the clinic. She should have come in as usual. We would have downloaded the images, wiped her memory, and the incident would have been dealt with.”

“Instead, she ran,” Sandrine said again. “Do you think she’s a spy?”